Rover's Rival
Rover's Rival is a 1937 Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Bob Clampett, and starring Porky Pig. Plot Porky is reading a book of cool sounding dog tricks and he grabs an object to go and try it with Rover. He has Rover come out of his dog house, revealing just how old Rover truly is... He tries to get Rover to try a few tricks, like sitting up, and rolling over (though Rover has trouble hearing). A young puppy happens to see them and he approaches to check things out. Porky tries to make Rover jump through a hoop, which he fails miserably and the young puppy barks at him while Rover is in a daze. He insults Rover but Porky doesn't seem to hear it and instead tries to play with Rover by using a rubber ball. Rover scolds the young puppy and he attempts to catch the ball. But the puppy throws a giant pumpkin, causing it to land in Rover's mouth! The puppy shows all of the tricks he can do with the ball before insulting Rover more. Porky scolds the puppy and tells him that Rover is sensitive, but the puppy doesn't seem intimidated by this and makes fun of Porky, which upsets him too. Porky then finds a trick for Rover and he shows that all he has to do is fetch the stick. The puppy counts how long it takes Rover, then quickly dashes over to the stick before Rover can grab it... Porky tells the puppy it is Rover's turn but this time Rover ends up dropping his teeth on the stick! The puppy fetches them both and when Porky tosses it, he grabs the Puppy to make sure Rover can get it. Unfortunately, Rover accidentally grabs a stick of dynamite, mistaking it for the stick. Porky then panics upon realizing what it was, causing the puppy to fly after the stick. Rover quickly looks up the word "Dynamite" while the puppy keeps bringing the explosive stick back, apparently not knowing its a bad object. Each time Porky tosses it, the puppy throws them back at Porky until he can no longer rid of them. The puppy then asks for a match, so that he may blow up Porky. But before they explode Porky runs away and the puppy keeps bringing the dynamite back to him. Rover finally manages to find the word Dynamite and rushes back outside to find the puppy mocking Porky. Rover grabs the dynamite and he runs away with it, but the Puppy resumes trying to bring them back until Rover finally has had enough and rips them from his teeth (which the puppy picked up, yet again). He then runs in the distance to try to rid of it as the puppy attempts going after him again, but is stopped when Rover's teeth grab onto him from the branch. Rover comes back to shake Porky's hand and runs away again. Just as the explosives go off... Porky panics as the Puppy apologizes to Rover and even calls him the best stick-fetcher there ever was, to which Rover suddenly sprouts up and asks if he meant it. Availability *DVD - Porky Pig 101, Disc 2 Gallery Trivia Censorship *In the redrawn version of this cartoon that aired on Nickelodeon's compilation show, Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon, the young puppy calling Rover "a washed-up, old antique" seems to have been partially muted, though it is unknown whether this was an intentional cut or if it was a sound mistake that was never fixed.http://www.intanibase.com/gac/looneytunes/censored-q-r.aspx Notes *This was the first Looney Tunes cartoon to feature its current theme "The Merry Go Round Broke Down", and feature the end card with Porky tearing through the drum to stutter "Th-th-th-that's all folks!". *The intro of this cartoon features an error: after the WB shield zoomed in, The "Vitaphone presents" and other texts don't fade in, but appear shortly when the WB shield fades out and the Looney Tunes logo, Porky and the production code appears. It was corrected in the next Looney Tunes cartoon. References Category:Shorts Category:Animated shorts Category:Warner Bros. shorts Category:Looney Tunes shorts Category:Looney Tunes Category:1937 shorts Category:1937 films Category:Leon Schlesinger Studios Category:Warner Bros. Cartoons Category:Warner Bros. Animation Category:Porky Pig Category:Porky Pig shorts Category:Black-and-white shorts Category:Black-and-white cartoons Category:Black and White Category:Black-and-white Category:Black and White shorts Category:Black and White cartoons Category:Leon Schlesinger Productions Category:Produced by Leon Schlesinger Category:Cartoons produced by Leon Schlesinger Category:1937 Category:1930s films Category:1930s shorts Category:1930s